Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have two and a half minutes, Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to let Mr. Davies know that the chair does get a lot of support around the table. In the past I've challenged some of his rulings, only to find out that I lost those as well. So you're in good company.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It's a matter of opinion.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

In terms of a couple of things that we accomplished in the last Parliament, number one, the passage of Bill C-11, the refugee reform act, and number two, Bill C-35, the Crooked Consultants Act, could you provide the committee with a brief update on both of those pieces of legislation, not so much obviously from a government perspective on the bill itself, but rather on the implementation of them both? They both bring sweeping changes to their respective departments and obviously will lead to some fairly significant changes within your departments. Would you mind updating us on the status of both pieces of legislation in terms of practicality?

[Les Linklater]

Sure.

I'll start with Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which received royal assent in June of last year. We are working towards implementation of the provisions of that bill by June of 2012. Under the act, the transitional provisions allow a period of 24 months from royal assent before coming into force. We're working on that now across CIC, the IRB, the Border Services Agency, Justice, and others. So it's a lot of detailed work, particularly regulatory drafting. Many packages have been prepublished already, systems work is well under way, and we're starting to see things come together in a way that's going to allow us to meet those timelines.

On the previous cracking down on the Crooked Consultants Act, which is now Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, we have moved forward very quickly. The minister has already made the designation of a new regulatory body for the consulting profession. That transition took place at the end of June of this year, and we are moving forward with the new ICCRC to ensure coverage of the consultant community. The transitional provisions, with the transfer from CSIC, the previous regulator, to the current one, expire at the end of October. At that point, as we understand from ICCRC, close to 1,700 consultants will be licensed by them, as the new regulator.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to echo all of our colleagues. This presentation is fabulous and useful, especially for new members of Parliament who do not have time to spend hours and hours on the website. So thank you.

I have a question on non-spousal family sponsorship. You mentioned earlier that your service standards are now about 12 months end to end for at least 80% of the cases. That's your goal.

What I'm experiencing out of my office is 48 months of processing time in Mississauga at the case processing centre alone, with more time elapsing overseas. So families are waiting seven to eight years to be reunited. Is this what you're experiencing as well? Can you talk about why we're experiencing 48 months at the CPC Mississauga, and then all of the other extra months, when your goal is 12 months end to end?

[Dawn Edlund]

Just to be clear, the 12-month service standard is for what we call FC1 applications. That's spouses or spouse-like folks such as common-law partners, conjugal partners, and dependent children. We've already given an undertaking to get back to you with respect to the actual processing time for that group of applications. I know that CPC Mississauga keeps that really tight. It'll be a couple of months, but we'll get the exact number before the file gets transferred overseas.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Sure.

[Dawn Edlund]

I think the 48 months you speak of is more in the FC4 category, the parents and grandparents, rather than spouses and their children.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

So it's FC1s, okay.

I'm going to switch gears to visitor visas, then. We're getting contradictory refusal reasons from the visa officers, and it's a common pattern that we're seeing out of our office. I'll give you an example. An applicant, like our grandmother, is refused because she failed to show stable financial assets. And then when the applicant reapplies, they're told that they're refused again because they now have an abundance of cashflow. This is the same person.

My grandmother applied. The first time they said she didn't have enough money. She reapplied showing money, and now they say she has an abundance of cashflow, so she's refused again. Can you explain why we're getting such contradictory reasons from the officers? It's a recurring pattern.

[Dawn Edlund]

As to why that would occur for the same applicant, it could be that in the second round of the application, the visa officer had some questions about the source, the stability, or possibly the legal ownership of the funds.

You need to know that we have a significant degree of fraud in our processes. It's endemic. Lots of folks invent banking statements that, when we go to check them out, turn out to be fraudulent. Off the top of my head, those are the kinds of issues that I think might come to a visa officer's attention.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

So most of the people who are coming through my office are fraudulent cases?

[Dawn Edlund]

I wouldn't say that, knowing nothing about the particulars of the files. It's what we experience in the field across our lines of business, not just for temporary residents but for permanent residents as well. There is a degree of fraud in relation to financial assets and banking statements.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Our experience is mostly with visitor visas—usually people who are trying to come for weddings or funerals, weddings a lot, and can't.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's a good question; it's happening to all of us.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

My next question is with respect to temporary foreign workers. How many TFW visas were actually issued last year in 2010? I just want to get the number from you.

[Dawn Edlund]

Do you have that handy?

[Les Linklater]

I have it here. I'll have to take a moment....

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

While you're looking, maybe I'll switch gears again to another question.

[Dawn Edlund]

Okay.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

The PR card renewal is my next question. Your website states that it's a processing time of 150 days. Actually, we're hearing about delays of up to 12 months, so 150 days versus 12 months. It's causing a lot of inconvenience to my constituents or the clients of CIC. Then, when people are talking to CIC officers, they're told that CIC will only consider, and not guarantee, expediting their PR cards if the applicant provides their travel itinerary, proof of payment, and all that stuff. Otherwise, the person is forced to go in person to the embassy. In many places it's difficult because the embassy is very far, and then of course they pay new fees and costs for travel on top of the PR renewal fee that they've already paid. Can you explain the discrepancy between the 150 days versus the 12 months?

[Dawn Edlund]

That's a process that happens in our case-processing centre in Sydney. We have had issues over time with Sydney in terms of the available resources to staff that office. What we have at times is temporary funding that comes to an end, so we end up having to lay staff off because we don't have money to pay them any more. Then if there's more money that comes forward, we can rehire staff. That has, in the PR card renewal phase, created this kind of a glitch that you've seen.

We do have a process, as you've mentioned, for people to put forward an urgent request. Those are dealt with expeditiously, by determining if there is something that can be done quickly to move it forward.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

In person--this is only if they go in person.